1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a walker behavior detection apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A walking status is recognized by observing vertical movement accompanying walking using an acceleration sensor and spectrum-analyzing the vertical movement. For example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Application Publication No. 10-113343 discloses such a technology. Further, a position of a walker is estimated in accordance with the recognized walking status by comparing the detected walking status with geographic data of, for example, passages in a building or roads outside the building.
Further, a moving distance is calculated by estimating stride from the recognized walking status. For example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Application Publication No. 2004-085511 and Journal of paper A by the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, Vol. J87-A, No. 1, pp 78-86, January 2004 disclose such a technology.
In the documents, the walking status is recognized by observing physical forces (an acceleration, an angular velocity, and like) generated by a movement of a walker. Walking on a staircase can be recognized only by the acceleration and the angular velocity from a waveform observed during the walking on the staircase. However, walking on the staircase may be erroneously recognized as walking on a level which resembles walking on the staircase. Further, if a positional compensation is made by comparing the motion recognition with geographic information, the erroneous recognition may cause judgment that the position is at an incorrect place. Further, the prior art position determination method does not consider a walking direction of the walker.
In the prior art, the moving distance is calculated by estimating a stride. However, it does not consider moving distances during climbing and descending the staircase.